Detail Is Near

A pilot tells me that we naturally tend to judge how far away things are by how much detail we can see on them. He says that this leads to a bias whereby pilots overestimate how far away is the ground at night, and when water is flat and calm. Experienced pilots know to correct for this. More examples where this detail heuristic leads to bias:

Women who see little detail in a man’s feelings often feel he is emotionally distant. But often men’s feelings just don’t have that much detail.

Liars add extra irrelevant detail to make their lies seem more believable. Religions do the same. Story tellers also add irrelevant (i.e., detached) vivid detail to make the overall features of plots and characters seem more realistic.

Familiar and in proximity are two distict ideas, which can be loosely related. Your answer therefore leaves the impression that “near/far” are akin to “yin/yang”, ie, a poetic mishmash of a bunch of different ideas which has the ability to seduce smart people who are susceptible to word magic and overeager to embrace a seeming simplification (as yin/yang did for centuries) but which is ultimately useless as a serious concept for actually understanding anything.

Maria

What’s the source for the statements on women’s and men’s feelings?

Querious

@Maria – life.

T. Bell

Another example: Academics wax prolix.

Maria

@Querious I thought the point of overcoming bias is avoiding answers like yours, right?

I should have said: Negotiation Tactics instead of strategies. Strategies are far, tactics are near.

Rick

Bock’s examples ring true to me. But perhaps the opposite example of “fine” dining is also true: fast food advertising tends to portray its food offerings close up and in extremely high detail even when the real deal is far from that perception. Because that’s what’s on the screen, people tend to think that maybe, this time, you’ll get a burger that tastes half as decent as it looks on the screen.

harry

What about *memories*?
When they are detailed, people tend to believe they are more acurate.

Daniel Reeves

I like #2 on your list, Hanson. I also like Bock’s example of negotiating.

As a rule of thumb, it seems that added details can fool others into thinking you’ve put a lot effort into something. The inverse seems to hold true: things that lack detail almost appear to be poorly and quickly made. This is one possible reason why a layman might dismiss a work by Malevich and Mondrian.

Robert Koslover

Magicians fool us with seemingly-relevant details.

This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.